Math Forum?

[boen_robot]

He has about 30 boxes of computers in his office that he needs to unpack and configure by a deadline.

Poor fellow. When computers come to me, I am the one to set the deadline based on how complicated each piece is, and extend it as I please depending on the new computers. The alternative to clients is to take their computer somewhere else, but the other guy will do the same, so...Then again, if you watch me work, you might think I'm streesed too, because as soon as I start installing Windows on computer A, I'll start running a RAM test on computer B, go back to A right after starting B to enter the SN, etc. etc.... I'm quick paced, and that leads people into believing I'm stressed. I'm not. It's just that I prefer to set up everything, then have a few minutes for myself. What do you think I'd be doing between the installation and memory test? If I'm not there talking with you, I'll be reading this forum instead. Maybe that chap is in the same position?

I like teaching but since I spend a lot of time reading about code, and recently converting my desktop and laptop to Debian Linux , I'm considering following a new path.

Everyone spends a lot of time when dealing with Linux... it's just a hard to work with, inconsistent OS.... that's not a reason to think it's a "must make" carrer switch.... hm... I think I just had an "aha" moment there. Now I understand why only developers use Linux. It's because you turn into a developer when you use Linux if you aren't already, or at least get the mindset to shorly after become one.

I might want to develop apps for education. Through help on this board, I was able to put a grading calculator online that my peers can use.

Unless you are government sponsored, creating apps for education doesn't pay. Schools rarely consider bying anything unless demanded by government, and universities usually have students and teachers capable enough of creating any desperately needed apps (for free). If not, the local IT university will often present a ready to go solution, which they'd take at any price (for the sake of "permanent support", so to speak), even if it's not any better than yours.I mean surely, for the app that you made, you didn't got a cent/penny/whatever, did you? You just got the satisfaction of doing something useful that people appreciate. A great feeling indeed (I'm on this board mostly for it), but one that unfortunatly doesn't pay bills.

What do you think are the most applicable math skills for programming or for the next chapters in computers or technology in general? Maybe I will start there.

Discrete mathematics, no two ways about it. It's the only kind of math that has a direct application in programming, as opposed to indirect, as is the case of all other kinds of math... Graphs, boolean algebra in particular are directly applicable.Well, maybe I'm just loving that math because it's the only math I've ever aced without a sweat. In fact, I remember the teacher going in the first lesson asking us with an unhappy face "How are you with Calculus?" (everyone's going "Ugh..."), "How are you with linear algebra?" (everyone's going "Meh...")... and then he suddenly smiles saying "Good news! You need none of that here!".

[jeffman]

<rant>FWIW, it is very hard to get a full-time English position. A typical community college has 30% full-time, 70% part time. Idealistic kids get graduate degrees, even PhD's, in the humanities and then look for full-time, tenure-track work to match them. It just isn't there. A full-time tenure track instructor may start at $35K + $10-$20K in benefits like health insurance. Adjuncts rarely get benefits and get paid by the course, so it to a college's advantage to hire mostly adjuncts, even if the quality of education suffers. Funny thing is, people will accept these crummy part time jobs, so there is no pressure on the colleges to change things. I'm lucky to have my tenured position, and I feel terrible for my colleagues who don't, but I can't personally hope to change a nationwide condition.</rant>

[paulmo]

Boen, thanks for your observations. So discrete math and its set and graph theory and relational algebra is the game. On first glance in Wikipedia, Boolean algebra seems like linear algebra with the 1s and 0s. I'm guessing the corresponding textual Booleans AND = conjunction, NOT = disjunction, and OR = complement? Am I right? DD, I've lived the life of which you accurately describe, for 12 years. What's your field?

[boen_robot]

I'm guessing the corresponding textual Booleans AND = conjunction, NOT = disjunction, and OR = complement? Am I right?

Almost.AND = conjunctionOR = disjunctionNOT = ... maybe "complement"... I'm used to calling it "logical not". The only other one I've used is "negation" (or the equivalent Bulgarian translation of that, to be more precise).If you're really keen on learning these kinds of things, going to some classes or reading appropriate text books is probably a good idea. It's hard to learn these things without someone explaining them to you, and correcting you on the small (but vital) mistakes. Wikipedia is a good reference, but not a learning source. Besides, discrete math includes many kinds of practical applications, but not all of them are actually directly applicable to the average programmer. Some (like formal grammars for example) are useful to language designers and specification writers, but not to a language's user (man, do I have a story about how FUN it was to learn about those... but it's hard to laugh at if you don't know the stuff already).

[jeffman]

I teach English in a community college. 18 years now. It's a pretty good gig. And I know I'm lucky to have it.Even in grad school I knew adjuncts who taught in 3-4 different schools, often in different COUNTIES, and spent most of their lives in their cars. Nothing has improved in 25 years. Quite the opposite. Yes, they are adults and could choose a different path (seems like you are), but it's emotionally hard to do after a huge investment of time and energy (especially if you've earned a PhD), and the whole thing is worsened by well-intentioned professors who tell impressionable undergraduates that they should consider graduate school. A 20-year-old who gets that advice probably doesn't understand that the job market doesn't exist, and the compliment is can be very misleading.

[jeffman]

A Boolean NOT is defined as a complement, since complementation in this context just means finding the opposite, TRUE or FALSE. It's not like complementary angles. Different beast. As a programmer, I've never felt that such words were missing from my vocabulary, not in the way that NOT itself is a useful word.// slightly off topic.Just for kicks, I benchmarked a stoopid little thing in JavaScript on Firefox(Mac). !!87 and new Boolean(87) should return the same thing. Ten million iterations of the former requires 2-4 milliseconds. Ten million of the latter requires over 200 milliseconds. On Safari(Mac) the second required something like 800 ms, the first required more like 600ms. This is not practical information. But it's interesting, in a geeky sort of way.

[paulmo]

I'm not crazy about the semantics of disjunction = OR and complement = NOT, as NOT is not the opposite, lexically speaking. Perhaps in the world of 1s and 0s, NOT is complementary, because what's NOT 1 is 0?Then, disjunction would be 1 OR 0? If so I think "either" would be a better term, as conjunction implies addition, and disjunction might imply subtraction.

[boen_robot]

Perhaps in the world of 1s and 0s, NOT is complementary, because what's NOT 1 is 0?

Exactly.

Then, disjunction would be 1 OR 0? If so I think "either" would be a better term, as conjunction implies addition, and disjunction might imply subtraction.

Yeah, I hate those terms myself. Every time I hear "conjunction" I think "con...tion", which immediatly leads me to "concatenation" and "connection". And that's just for starters. If I'm not in a mood, I'll keep going to think of patterns about the "junc" part, and since that's very close to "junk", you can imagine where I'll be heading.

Just for kicks, I benchmarked a stoopid little thing in JavaScript on Firefox(Mac).

[in the voide of that guy from advertisments]W3Schools - the only place where you can go from "excuse me, I could be mistaken" to learning some fun geeky trivia that may come in handy.W3Schools - the school that doesn't ######.

[jeffman]

The thing that really struck me was how fast Firefox did the NOT NOT cast compared to the Boolean Object technique and either way Webkit tried it. I started off with 10K iterations and came back with 0 time elapsed, like the loop was empty. It wasn't till 10M that I started reliably seeing single digits greater than 1. Okay, I thought, maybe 100M will really teach me something. But let's try the other technique first. Bang. 2 orders of magnitude difference.Remember when all the DOM techniques were eons slower than innerHTML, but now they're catching up? Reminds me a little of that. Maybe the object will be worthwhile soon. I haven't tried Chrome yet. Maybe.Still, we are talking 10M iterations! At 1 iteration . . .I like the NOT NOT trick because I learned it a while back. But a thing that looks like an explicit cast makes the code more readable. That's worth a lot."The school that doesn't suck." I like that. I actually read an article last week about improving American universities. It said we're wasting our time on the wrong stuff. Job One should be making sure your school doesn't suck. Maybe I'll make it my new philosophy:DDDesigns: Our Code Doesn't Suck!